Richard Neutra's Miller House

Book DescriptionAt the dawn of his international fame, architect Richard Neutra was approached by a St. Louis socialite, Grace Lewis Miller, to design a small winter home on the edge of glamour-baked Palm Springs. Miller wanted an open, light-filled house that could also act as a studio for her fashionably avant-garde exercise course in posture and grace, "The Mensendieck System." This unique program, combined with the desert landscape and the proactive health-minded client appealed to the idealist in Neutra. The frequent, fervent dialog between Neutra and Miller, who had great mutual respect, produced a work of forward-thinking and artful architecture. In Richard Neutra's Miller House, Stephen Leet traces the conception and realization of the house, examines the complex relationship between architect and client, and shows how the Mensendieck System influenced the creation of this seminal Neutra project. Beautiful duotone photographs by Julius Shulman, excerpts from the detailed...